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K'Chain Che'Malle
The K'Chain Che'Malle cheh-malSteven Erikson Q&A (see Question 15)An Evening with Steven Erikson by Nerdaí Irish Nerds - As pronounced by Erikson at 15:29 were non-human and one of the founding intelligent races in the Malazan Book of the Fallen.Gardens of the Moon, Glossary, UK MMPB p.705 Although evidence of their strange mechanisms, architecture,Memories of Ice, Chapter 9, Epigraph and barrows could be found on nearly every continent, they were presumed extinct.Memories of Ice, Glossary, UK MMPB p.1183 The Imass Pran Chole said the K'Chain Che'Malle were "no more--the ice spoke to them with words of death."Gardens of the Moon, Chapter 11, US HC p.253 Their power was said to have been so immense that they had kept the Elder Gods away from the Malazan world until their civilisation self-destructed. They were also said to have once ruled over the younger Jaghut race much as the Jaghut Tyrants had ruled over the Imass.Memories of Ice, Chapter 15, US SFBC p.500-503 The Tiste Edur name for them was 'Kaschan'.Midnight Tides, Chapter 3, UK MMPB p.139 The Awl called them 'Kechra, the Firstborn of Dragons'.Reaper's Gale, Chapter 4, UK BCA edition p.104 Anatomy ] ] The K'Chain Che'Malle were intelligent lizards standing taller than a man, moving bipedally by balancing the weight of their torsos with a tapering tail (much like velociraptors and other bipedal dinosaurs) and pale skin similar to the underbelly of a snake. They selectively bred their own kind to take advantage of specific traits, the most noticeable difference being the length of the tail. There were the original long-tails (K'Chain Che'Malle) and the engineered short-tails (K'Chain Nah'ruk). See also * Drone * J'an Sentinel * K'ell Hunter * K'Chain Nah'ruk * Matron * Shi'Gal Assassin * Ve'Gath Soldier Culture The K'Chain Che'Malle were the first race on the Malazan world to evolve intelligence, and they developed a culture of technological and magical sophistication hundreds of thousands of years before the evolution of hominids. Most knowledge of the K'Chain Che'Malle was retrospective, developed through inspection of their cultural ruins thousands of years after their extinction. As such, it was difficult to state anything definitive about them. It was known that they were eusocially ruled in the manner of ants, with a single female queen (the Matron) and thousands of male drones and soldiers. They were matriarchal and matrilineal. The K'Chain Che'Malle appeared to lack a racial Warren to draw upon, instead employing gravity-based magic that mixed heavily with their technology. They inhabited gigantic structures known as Skykeeps, buildings so large they appeared to be floating mountains. Most Skykeeps were destroyed during the civil war that exterminated their race, though there were a few known Skykeeps remaining during the time of the Malazans. Examples included the one used by the Tiste Andii, Moon's Spawn, the one piloted by the remaining K'Chain Che'Malle on the continent of Lether, and a few others piloted by K'Chain Nah'ruk seen in the Imperial Warren (later destroyed). Towards the end of their civilisation, the race's Matrons gathered together to meld their powers towards some unknown purpose. One result was the engineered resurrection of the extinct K'Chain Nah'ruk breed (dubbed the Short-Tails by Kallorian scholars). The experiment that broke from the control of the long-tailed Matrons due to the Short-Tail's independent nature and resistance to surrendering their magical talent to their mothers. This resulted in a civil war. In addition to internal struggle, a massive Tiste invasion occurred and a large-scale war between the K'Chain Che'Malle and Forkrul Assail. These conflicts were supposed to have destroyed their race, though at least two Matrons and a number of others survived until the events that occured during the Malazan Book of the Fallen (see Anatomy for more details). K'Chain Che'Malle architecture made use of vast plazas covering thousands of square leagues. These plazas were lined by exquisitely fitted grey flagstones that seemed to be immune to age and weathering. One such plaza was known to remain on Stratem while another likely lay beneath the ice of northwestern Lether.Memories of Ice, Chapter 9, Epigraph The stone used in K'Chain Che'Malle Construction was nearly unbreakable even after millenia. They built domed stone tombs above ground for their dead. Magic The Elder Warren of the K'Chain Che'Malle was Kaschan. It was born from sounds beyond human hearing that bent and stretched light. These sounds were bound into words that loosened the bindings holding matter together. With Kaschan, K'Chain Che'Malle sorcerers could fashion skykeeps of stone that floated in air and twist rock so that it grew like living wood. The magic of the warren still lingered past the seeming death of its children.Midnight Tides, Chapter 3, US SFBC p.116 Interaction with the Malazan world Most of the K'Chain Che'Malle appearing in the novels were undead or seen in visions of the past, though there were a couple of exceptions. In Gardens of the Moon The inner ring of Malazan military commanders were each said to be equipped with communication devices looted from a K'Chain Che'Malle tomb. Made of human bone and verdigrised copper wire, the devices allowed users to speak across great distances. Whiskeyjack used such a device in Darujhistan to communicate with Dujek Onearm in Pale.Gardens of the Moon, Chapter 18, US HC p.385 In Memories of Ice The soul of a single living Matron was accidentally freed from imprisonment within the Rent on Genabackis by Kilava Onass. After hundreds of thousands of years, it managed to escape its warded tomb and raised hundreds of its children from their barrows as undead. But the Matron was driven insane in the process, and control of its children was co-opted by the Pannion Seer for the expansion of his empire.Memories of Ice, Prologue, US SFBC p.24-26Memories of Ice, Chapter 1, US SFBC p.57Memories of Ice, Chapter 19, US SFBC p.694-695 Undead K'ell Hunters were sent to assist the Pannion Siege of Capustan. The undead versions of the long-tailed K'Chain Che'Malle were slower and more resistant to normal, mortal pain. The first direct interaction between the Malazan Empire and the K'Chain Che'Malle occurred at Coral during the Pannion War. The Battle of Black Coral pitted the T'lan Imass, Malazan forces, and the Barghast versus the undead K'ell Hunters and the forces of the Pannion Domin.Memories of Ice, Chapter 24Memories of Ice, Chapter 25 In House of Chains After the discovery of Moon's Spawn, Osseric spent time in the fortress studying it. He observed that Moon's Spawn showed signs of damage, breaching, and slaughter. Nevertheless, a few of its original inhabitants survived long enough to send the fortress on its journey home over the northern icefields where it had become entrapped by a glacier. Osseric determined that Moon's Spawn had been one of the K'Chain Che'Malle's skykeeps and he withdrew from the world to continue his study of the alien mechanisms. From a Jaghut tower within a warren formed by Raraku's ancient memory, he observed a total of three skykeeps travel from the north to Seven Cities. None of their inhabitants survived contact with the continent's defenders, the Deragoth. The Hounds' presence likely explained why no K'Chain Che'Malle colony had ever been established on Seven Cities. Osserc also believed that the K'Chain Che'Malle were not of the Malazan world.House of Chains, Chapter 21, US SFBC p.685/687 In Midnight Tides ] At the time of the sundering of Kurald Emurlahn, several hundred thousand years before the events of the Malazan Book of the Fallen, the K'Chain Che'Malle had ruled the entire Letherii continent. Enormous cities stretching for leagues and flagstoned plazas could be found throughout northwest Lether.Midnight Tides, Chapter 13, US SFBC p.403 Then an allied force of four hundred thousand Tiste Andii led by Silchas Ruin and two hundred thousand Tiste Edur led by Scabandari invaded the Malazan world through a violent rent. They destroyed an army of over sixty thousand K'Chain Che'malle in Lether as well as four K'Chain Nah'ruk skykeeps. Afterwards, Scabandari noted that the K'Chain Che'Malle were all but gone from the world and their cities dead. Only Morn remained and the Short-Tails there seemed on the verge of rebellion.Midnight Tides, Prologue, US SFBC p.19-25 At Mael's request, the Jaghut, Gothos, sealed the wreckage of the battlefield's destroyed hive cities and skykeeps under a layer of Omtose Phellack ice.Midnight Tides, Prologue, US SFBC p.25 According to Edur oral tradition, the dying K'Chain Che'Malle race sought vengeance against the Tiste after their invasion. They sent their sorcery into the warren of Darkness like a plague, and their ritual turned Darkness in upon itself with an all-devouring hunger. The gates between Kurald Galain and every other realm were sealed, and Mother Dark herself was driven into the core of the Abyss. There, she would one day devour all that was around her, resulting in her own murder, the death of the Abyss, and the end of all things. On the brink of extinction, the K'Chain Che'Malle "locked all things into mortality, into the relentless plunge towards extinction...they forced all else to share their fate."Midnight Tides, Chapter 3, US SFBC p.116-118 By the time of 1161 BS, they were all but unknown to the human residents of Lether. The Letherii occasionally found and sold their bones and teeth in the markets of Trate without understanding what they were.Midnight Tides, Chapter 21, US SFBC p.629 To date the only time they had spoken with other races was with Silchas Ruin in a parley attempt, though it was unclear if the parley actually happened or if Ruin simply sought it. In The Bonehunters Tales among the Nameless Ones indicated that an invasion of skykeeps had arrived on the Malazan world long ago when Human society existed only as small bands. But some opposition by the Jaghut, the Forkrul Assail, or the Elder Gods had driven them away from Seven Cities.The Bonehunters, Chapter 4, US SFBC p.152-153 In Reaper's Gale (content needed) In ''Dust of Dreams The second K'Chain Che'Malle interaction with the Malazan Empire involved the appearance of a male and female on the continent of Lether, and the revelation that an entire hive still existed on that same continent. Gesler and Stormy aiding the only remaining hive, Acyl nest, and fought successfully against some remaining K'Chain Nah'ruk. It was revealed that Gunth'an Acyl, the reigning Matron, sacrificed herself to create an army of K'Chain Che'Malle. Where a normal Matron would only birth several hundred Che'Malle, she brought over twenty-thousand into the world in a short time. The exhaustive act of restoring her race broke her sanity and she perished before the battle, leaving her daughter Gunth Mach as the last living Matron of the Che'Malle. The named K'Chain Che'Malle of Acyl Nest in the Lether Wastelands: * Matron Gunth'an Acyl * One Daughter Gunth Mach * J'an Sentinel Bre'nigan * Shi'Gal Assassin Gu'Rull * K'ell Hunter Kor Thuran * K'ell Hunter Rythok * K'ell Hunter Sag'Churok * Drone Sulkit' In ''The Crippled God In Kellanved's Reach Notes and references es:K’Chain Che’Malle de:K'Chain Che'Malle pl:K'Chain Che'Malle Category:K'Chain Che'Malle Category:Races